Altruistic Punishment Favors the Power Attainment for Punishers: An Evolutionary Perspective

Chen Sijing; Wang Hao; Yang Shasha; Zhu Yue

doi:10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.202304017

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Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2023, Vol. 46 ›› Issue (4) : 897-904. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.202304017

Social, Personality & Organizational Psychology

Altruistic Punishment Favors the Power Attainment for Punishers: An Evolutionary Perspective

Chen Sijing¹, Wang Hao¹, Yang Shasha², Zhu Yue³

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Abstract

Existing literature suggests that altruistic punishment is an important mechanism for maintaining extensive cooperation among genetically unrelated individuals, but it also raises a long-standing evolutionary riddle: since altruistic punishment reduces the fitness of punishers, how are altruistic punishers selected in evolution? One explanation is that altruistic punishment brings a positive reputation for punishers. However, how a positive reputation can improve the fitness of punishers remains an unanswered question. By introducing the two-dimensional structure of reputation, this study further explores how altruistic punishment can improve punishers' fitness through positive reputation from a power perspective.
Experiment 1 was a within-participant design involving 120 undergraduates. Participants randomly formed 30 groups of 4 to play 5 rounds of public goods games. After each round, participants could punish defectors who chose to keep the tokens. Then, the experimenter presented to participants the number of punishments made by the three members. Participants rated them in terms of warmth and competence on a 7-point Likert scale and allocated the 10 power points among them. Experiment 2 was a 2 (warmth: low/high) × 2 (competence: low/high) between-participant design involving 240 undergraduates. Participants read a piece of material describing the performance of an individual in terms of warmth and competence in past similar situations, and then participants chose a number from 0 to 10 to represent the number of power points that they were willing to allocate to that individual. Experiment 3 was a 3 (punishment: no/low/high) × 2 (between-group competition: without/with) mixed design, where punishment was within-participant variable and between-group competition was the between-participant variable. Participants played 5 rounds of public goods games in group of 4, and allocated power points among the members according to the number of punishments. In the between-group competition condition, before allocating power points, the experimenter told the participants that they would be ranked according to their group's performance in a new investment task, and that the higher the ranking, the higher the final reward; in non-competitive condition, the participants were told that their final remuneration was only related to their own performance in the investment task.
The results of Experiment 1 showed that altruistic punishment was conducive to punishers' power attainment, and the competence evaluation mediated the above relation, while the mediating effect of warmth evaluation was not significant. Experiment 2 manipulated the mediating variables (warmth and competence) in Experiment 1 and confirmed the causal relation between the competence evaluation and the dependent variable, power attainment. Experiment 3 showed that between-group competition further strengthened the participants' tendency to allocate power to altruistic punishers.
In conclusion, by examining the moderating variables and mediating mechanisms that affect the relation between altruistic punishment and power attainment, this study contributes, to some extent, the mechanism through which altruistic punishment affects punishers' power attainment. Altruistic punishment improves people's evaluation of punishers in terms of competence. This positive evaluation finally translates into punishers' power attainment, and the between-group competition strengthens the tendency of the occurrence of the above phenomenon. These findings shed some light on the understanding of the evolutionary mechanism of altruistic punishment.

Key words

altruistic punishment / power / reputation / between-group competition

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Chen Sijing, Wang Hao, Yang Shasha, Zhu Yue. Altruistic Punishment Favors the Power Attainment for Punishers: An Evolutionary Perspective[J]. Journal of Psychological Science. 2023, 46(4): 897-904 https://doi.org/10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.202304017

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